Yesterday, I was talking to one of my colleagues (an American) in the office about the prospects for Barack Obama becoming US president. He was very much of the view that, unfortunately, Obama faces the highest likelihood of being assassinated in office because of his skin colour. This was reinforced by the fact that, despite the rhetoric of America being finally "ready" - whatever that means - for a black President, he (my colleague) was still receiving emails from friends back in the USA who were revealing their true colours (pardon the pun) through their transparent attempts to disguise what was clearly thinly veiled racism, purporting to be presented as criticisms of Obama's policies or political leanings.
It's scary that this issue still matters so much to so many in a country where surely the need to do something about the failing economy, the costs of the war in Iraq and the lack of universal healthcare transcend the skin colours of the men competing to take on those tasks.
It reminded me also of an interesting "What if.." question posed in the paper the other day, which was founded on the fact that Obama is actually only half black - his mother being white American from Kansas, and his father a black Kenyan. With this in mind, the question was posed whether, if Obama had been raised in Kenya instead of America, and was now standing for President of that obviously predominantly black African country, would he be being singled out by the media, and be being subjected to racism within the wider population, for being the "white" candidate?
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